In the construction of buildings, frequently used construction products include exterior cladding materials. Exterior cladding materials may be used to cover the exterior surfaces formed from various framing structures. Over the years, exterior cladding materials have been formed as prefabricated or cast veneer wall panels, which provide a quick and efficient way to provide a masonry appearance for a building while also simplifying construction and lowering cost. Non-limiting examples of exterior cladding materials that have been formed in this manner include stone veneer, brick veneer, aluminum siding, vinyl siding, wood siding, stucco, concrete, glass, and metal.
In certain applications, the exterior building cladding materials may be applied to more than one wall of various sub-structures, thereby necessitating materials or panels that are configured to efficiently and effectively turn the corners created between those walls, whether an outside or an inside oriented corner. Historically, designers and installers have solved problems associated with turning corners either by simply abutted various standard configured cladding materials or by using L-shaped corner panels. However, adapting standard configured cladding materials for corner use oftentimes resulted in undesirable imperfections and/or irregular gaps adjacent the intersection of such materials, due largely to their not being intended for such use. Similarly, while traditional L-shaped corner panels addressed such standard panel concerns, their use was oftentimes cumbersome and inefficient, particularly as many structural corners are not precisely and repeatedly L-shaped. Of course, traditional L-shaped corner panels only proved useful for outside-oriented corners, requiring continued adaptation of standard panels for inside-oriented corners.
Still further, in certain applications, it is oftentimes desirable to apply exterior building cladding materials along one or more walls of a sub-structure and, upon encountering an outside-oriented corner, switch to an alternate material (e.g., from stone veneer to vinyl siding). In such instances, an aesthetically pleasing termination of the exterior building cladding material is desirable. Traditionally, uniquely configured end pieces have been provided and used in such scenarios, in addition to the standard panels and/or L-shaped corner panels. As a result, installation of many cladding material systems becomes not only complex and cumbersome, but inefficient and costly, due in large part to the high level of manual labor and material waste inherently involved.
Thus, a need exists for an exterior cladding material corner panel that may be interchangeably used to address an outside-oriented corner, an inside-oriented corner, and an end wall termination. A need also exists for such a universal corner panel that eliminates the undesirable imperfections and/or irregular gaps created by using traditional panels and produce a wall having an enhanced aesthetic appearance.